In computer graphics, a level of detail (LOD) involves adjusting detail based on geometry information such as depth values of control points or a curvature defined by the control points. In other words, LOD involves reducing the complexity of a three-dimensional (3D) object representation as it moves away from a viewer. LOD techniques increase the efficiency of rendering by decreasing the workload on graphics pipeline stages (e.g., vertex transformations).
Among tessellation stages in a graphics pipeline, a tessellator is expected to perform a tessellation operation on an object. Accordingly, the overhead of the tessellator increases due to computational requirements.